Make Your Own “In Case of Investigation: Discovery” File
I watch a lot of what can be described as“Murder Shows.” Dateline on ID, Snapped, On the Case With Paula Zahn, Cold Case Files — pretty much whatever's on Investigation: Discover at any given time. If a nurse in Alabama murdered her husband using some obscure paralysis-inducing drug for insurance money, I want to know about it. (This happens more than you'd think.)
The problem with watching a lot of murder shows, though, is that you realize a lot of people who aren't all that different from you are getting murdered all the time. Women in their 20s who just wanted to have a good time with their friends –until they were killed by some dude they went on a date with. And so, much like planning the details of your own imaginary wedding while sitting at someone else's (“she shouldn't have gone with colored table linens — gotta remember that”), you start to envision your own murder and its subsequent news coverage. How will they portray me? Middle class Irish girl from Long Island moves to the city and gets murdered while drunkenly stumbling home one night? Or sophisticated city girl gets stabbed before entering her super-cool apartment on the way home from a glamorous party? This is way too important to be left to chance, so I'm making a folder called “In Case of Investigation: Discovery” on my computer, just in case the murder show producers come knocking someday.
Step One – Photos: The victims' families invariably provide the murder shows only two or three photos of the deceased, which are then cycled through the show over and over again, until the viewer has seen each photo at least 20 times over the course of an hour. These photos aren't always flattering, or recent, so, first thing you want in your file is a dozen or so good photos of yourself. You wouldn't let your family choose your Facebook profile picture, so why let them choose the photos that will represent you after your body is exhumed from a lake? Your photos should be recent, happy, and should play into the narrative you'd like to be remembered for. Are you an outdoorsy sort? That shot of you scaling a shear rock face in Alaska needs to be first and foremost among the selection. More of a big city glamour girl? Photos from rooftop cocktail parties, and that time you DJed your friends birthday party ought to do the job. Its a good idea to include at least a few photos of yourself with a baby, your grandparents, or a cute animal.
Step Two – Define your narrative: This part is important, because if you want the producers to say anything about you besides “She was young, beautiful, and had her whole life ahead of her,” you're going to have to throw them something other than your long-forgotten MySpace page. First, make a Word document with a list of your hobbies, or even hobbies you plan on getting around to someday. (“She was a talented dancer, and was just starting to get good at the ukulele and southern French cooking.”) If you have some photos to back them up even better. Then, point out awards and achievements and list some things you want people to know about you — charity causes, places you've traveled, arts and entertainment preferences, any celebrities you might have slept with, that kind of thing. You can think of it as a sort of online dating profile, for the afterlife. This is also a good place to suggest likely suspects in your murder, if any.
Step Three – Suggest interview subjects: It's possible your parents will be too upset to discuss your tragic end, in which case the producers are going to go sniffing around your circle of friends. If you don't want that skank Melissa having the last word on your life and untimely death, now is the time to speak up, because you know that bitch is desperate to get on TV. Choose friends who know you well but aren't stupid enough to mention that thing you did in college.
Step Four – Tell someone: Someone needs to know this exists and where it is, otherwise the whole thing is useless. You need a friend who's media savvy and, if possible, as vain as you are, to avoid any judgement. If you have friends who are publicists or aspiring actors, these are going to be your best bets.
And that's it, in four easy steps! The only downside to this is that after you're dead, all your friends will all find out what a weird, morbid, narcissistic control freak you are. Oh, and the whole being-murdered thing.
Deirdre Corley is a writer and film festival programmer in Brooklyn who hopes she doesn't get murdered, but can't really rule it out.
yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes
At what age can you stop worrying about random serial killers and start worrying about early heart attacks? Is it 35? 30?
I mean, you sort of have to…age out of serial killer victim territory, right? They don't slaughter the middle-aged, do they?
@melis They do, but there sure as shit isn't any tv coverage of it.
ETA I do not believe that 30-35 is middle-aged.
@deepomega "sure as shit" is one of my favorite things to say, because truly, is there anything surer?
@melis: But once you reach middle age, chances are you'll be crazy cat lady/hoarder who will die when a giant stack of newspapers topples over and your mummified remains will be found months later. Since this too will be the subject of a TV investigation, best to still have photos of your once youthful-and-non-hoarding self – it adds to the narrative to show this fate awaits pretty much everyone, even those of us who were once young and carefree.
@melis They even slaughter the old. It's terrible.
@deepomega If you die of a heart attack at an early age in Orlando, rest assured that a sympathetic but no-nonsense coroner named Jan Garavaglia will investigate your death on Dr. G: Medical Examiner.
I'm actually not worried about being serial-killed, dying of a premature heart attack, OR being buried alive/eaten by my own cats.
I'm worried about being a vegetable, and have made my husband and several friends swear to either suffocate me, or feed me a box jellyfish. And since this will happen BEFORE I get to the Terri Schiavo level of "fame", no one will need any pictures of me for their news stories. I hope.
@melis Nah, then you just most likely get murdered by your own husband. At least, this is what these shows tell me.
@melis im 26 and have been worried about them for years! Also aneurysms.
@melis THANK YOU. I was going to have to shun you.
@punkahontas say that to the constipated…
@punkahontas Death.
The fact that I am not the only person who thinks about these things makes me unbelievably happy. I did not think about that skank, Melissa, though! You are totally right. I don't want her having the last word. I need to start making some calls….
Also, my sister and I have a pact that, should one of us disappear/die suddenly, the other will go to her house and "clear" it of anything embarrassing – old diaries, sex toys, pick the dirty clothes up off the floor and put them in the hamper, etc.
@Bebe Me too! I also almost daily think of some old lady adage I heard once that if you died today, do you want people seeing you in that pair of underwear? If not, change and throw those suckers out.
@madamvonsassypants But you're gonna poop in them anyway, so what's the point?
I am more worried about this kind of thing if I become a suspected murderer. There's a particularly bad Facebook photo of me with crazy looking eyes. I bet they'd use that one if they wanted me to look like a crazy killer. I'd untag myself, but they'd still find it…
Also, don't randomly google poisons, as if anyone you know happens to be killed by poison, you will become a prime suspect.
@Xaxa If Michelle Bachman ends up a serial killer, they can use the current Newsweek cover as her "crazed murderer" face.
@Xaxa Also, when you're fighting with someone in front of witnesses, never EVER yell, "I am going to kill you!" Because if they turn up dead, you will definitely be a suspect.
@Xaxa My mother recently said that "if the police ever have to come and question the neighbors," she's afraid that they hear her yelling. Um. Why does she think the police will be questioning the neighbors about her???????
@Xaxa Or, if you can't not do something suspicious, do it as unsuspiciously as possible. Like google poisons, but then write really terrible murder mysteries involving those poisons that you post to your blog and claim to be a famous author. Or if you're yelling (@Lily Rowan's mom), always yell. Yell at the tv. Yell at your houseplants. Yell at the weather. Eventually everyone will tune it out, or not be able to remember when it happened, and be unable to link it to a definitive date or timeframe.
@wharrgarbl Yes, then it would look like you had been set up…
@Xaxa: Obviously that Norway asshole took the photo advice and lined up some studio shots.
::shudders::
@Xaxa I worry about that all the time, actually. People could totally paint a narrative of me about being predisposed to murder/criminality/insanity.
I think about all the people who would say 'yeah, she always a little weird – it makes perfect sense. One time she stole ice cream from a store/killed (insects!) with no remorse.'
Funny things, narratives are. (I don't want to derail this over a discussion over her guilt or not, but as an example, relatively innocuous pictures of Amanda Knox, for example, have been used to sell a narrative of her as a crazy psycho e.g.:http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/replicate/EXID32288/images/009Foxyknoxy_468x516.jpg)
@wearenyikin In high school, my English teacher said I was the most likely person in the class to go on a rampage, because I was the quiet one no one would suspect. She said this in front of the whole class. Thanks teach…
This is amazing.
You probably already know this, Deirdre, because you pretty much sound like an expert but: http://www.truecrimediary.com.
(holy SHIT)
@Katie Heaney Deirdre here… No I didn't know this! Yikes! There goes my evening.
@Katie Heaney Truecrimediary.com is THE BEST. She just gets it.
@Katie Heaney Thank you for this! As a fellow true crime mystery story addict, I am always looking for justification
I never thought anyone would be able to top Shark Week UNTIL NOW.
This type of preparation is useful not just in the cases where you'll be the subject of a one-hour basic cable show, but also for instances where you're one of a crowd, e.g. when NYTimes does mini-profiles of all of the passengers on doomed Flight XYZ or the terrorist attack on XXXX XX, XXXX.
Preparation is key because when you die in a mass tradegy because that's exactly when you NEED TO STICK OUT IN A CROWD! When your casual NYT reader is cluck, clucking about how sad it is that all those people died, you want your 1×2 black and white picture to scream really sad. Pity those who are represented by snaps that look more like still images taken from security cameras and without cleverly written vignettes about their lives.
Oh man, I think about this too whenever a woman around my age gets killed and they gave her some descriptor. I think I even told my sister how I would like to be portrayed, so they don't talk about all of the bad things about me, but I like this document idea. But then that means that if they're already on your computer, they'll be going through everything, so you'd better super triple hide any compromising pictures/angry emails/early versions of your resume when you didn't say all the good stuff.
A friend of mine from high school was murdered recently. I may be biased, because I happen to KNOW she was lovely to be around, lovely to look at, the epitome of "bright future," but I admit that a dark part of me was pleased by the extensive media coverage. Major news outlets linked to a video of her first bungee jump and her personality and joie de vivre just SHINE through.
I don't believe in trial by media, of course. But damned if it wouldn't make anyone's heart swell with righteous anger on behalf of her and her family. Good; catch a glimpse of what was stolen.
@Tailfeather I'm really sorry about your friend.
@Tailfeather Not to be the downer on this (amusing) post, but a high school friend of mine was murdered too, while we were still in high school. Before that, I was a little cynical about descriptions of murder victims in the media; surely they all weren't "the nicest person ever" who would "give you the shirt of his/her back."
Boy was I an idiot. Sorry for your loss.
@thebestjasmine That's very kind, so thank you. It was not someone I'd been close to in several years, so I won't overplay my personal loss. It was more the loss of someone I knew to be a good person, which is always a loss to everyone, feeling terrible for her family, followed by a huge dose of WTF-WORLD-edness.
I thought twice about commenting, but I found the post amusing, not least because I've had similar thoughts myself (mostly like an earlier commenter, in that I have an agreed "clean-up" friend who will rid my flat of any evidence that might suggest to my folks that I was less than a celestial virgin high-achiever). And ultimately, because I hadn't fully realized that one of the things stewing in my brain when I looked at coverage of my HS friend's murder was, "Right on. She was a fucking jewel. Anyone could see that. Enjoy maximum penalty, you bitch." DARK!
@TheBelleWitch Agreed, and my condolences for your own loss.
So… would thoughts of your own murder file be the worst reason ever to get involved in a charity?
Probably not. Tell them I was knitting sweaters for the homeless in between sessions of literacy tutoring and whale-saving, and I got your back likewise. Don't tell them I was on the internet looking at celebrity gossip. SHHHH.
@Tailfeather I'm down with this plan — IF they can get ahold of me in the impoverished village where I'm teaching orphans how to read at that school I built with my bare hands.
Man, I love those shows. Though I typically watch them for the what-not-to-dos, which I then relay to my husband. "Hey, babe, if I ever murder you? I promise not to leave your corpse on the curb next to the recycling bins and then hypothesize that maybe someone else did it and dumped you there to frame me or 'send a message.' I will put way more effort into an alibi*, too."
*Alibis are important, but most important is that you need to get your story straight and stick to it. If you murder someone, you can't be all like "I haven't seen them for two days" one week and then all "Okay, so maybe I saw them an hour before they disappeared" the next.
@wharrgarbl Don't forget to practice your reactions and facial expressions – first you have to be confused – like, "What? Dead? I don't understand." Then denial: "No, no, it must be someone else." Then it hits you: "Oh my god, oh my god." (this is when the tears/hyperventilating should start). And it all has to happen within 30 seconds of them telling you they found the body.
@Bebe It bugs the hell out of me when fake-murder-shows mess that up. It's like they forget that the reaction you would have if your loved one who has been missing for two years has finally been confirmed dead is not the same as the reaction that you would have if you were meeting them for dinner that night or you just saw them, and they were fine, and now they're dead. Maybe the writers are all sociopaths?
@Bebe Normally I would think this was funny, but unfortunately this is exactly how I reacted to finding out one of my friends was murdered at 21.
Oh I am so sorry for your loss, and for being an asshole. I really intended to mock Law & Order-type shows, not actual tragedies. I'm so sorry.
I'm just gonna try to remember to keep my lab notes on how to make vegan smores and 99% pure crystal meth in a safe deposit box or under the mattress or SOMETHING.
@gimlet May we all learn from Gale's mistakes.
@gimlet And maybe destroy that Thai karaoke video?
@pixieg That Thai karaoke video made me laugh a lot though, so maybe keep that one around. It'll make you look fun, not weird, I swear!
@gimlet WAIT! I was just talking to a friend today about whether vegan smores are possible or not. How do you do it?
@gimlet It looks like vegan marshamllows can be bought on internets
http://www.sweetandsara.com/
And dairy free chocolate also seems to exist although I have never seen it before.
@Megan Patterson@facebook Jumping in to say: If you're near a Whole Foods or similar, you should be able to find vegan marshmallows called Dandies – less pricey than the (admittedly delicious) Sweet and Sara ones. Standard grocery-store graham crackers are usually fine, and most good dark chocolate doesn't have dairy in it. Good luck – so worth the effort.
I also like to quiz my husband once in a while – what was I wearing when you last saw me? Where was I going? Which purse was I carrying? Did I seem upset or angry? Sadly, he almost never gets any of these answers right – if I go missing, and he's the last person who saw me, I am so screwed.
@Bebe The answer is clearly to become a social media junkie. Just tweet everything. That way when they get the warrant to go through your profile history, they'll have a complete description of everything. "She just walked past some juicebox who was playing that one song from The Bravery on his ipod way too loud and will damage his hearing. Bring me every partially-deaf juicebox in the tricounty area!" Or those camera-glasses that upload everything to youtube? Then they'd also have a picture of the juicebox who last saw you alive.
@wharrgarbl It would probably help to time stamp it, too:
12:15, corner of Mad & 70: Just held door open for caucasion male, brown/brown late 40s 6 feet 220 lbs wearing navy suit with red tie. #incaseigetmurdered
@BebeMad & 70th? You're going to need to be way more specific than "tall white guy in suit."
So timely! Last night my mom made me take nice pictures of her and her new hairdo in the event that she suddenly dies.
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Make sure to have a friend who will go through your room and remove vibrators and such so your parents don't find them when packing up your things.
@ribeye I'm soo glad I'm not the only one that thinks about that!!!
I knew someone that was on On the Case With Paula Zahn, so I can't watch these types of shows anymore…they're just too real
Don't forget that it always helps live in a location in the Midwest where most people keep their doors unlocked, and "no one thought anything like this could ever happen in a town like this".
You should also try dating several people back-to-back/off-and-on in order to add suspicion and suspense to the part of the story where cops spend too much time trying to figure out which former lover (now living in other states) had the motive and means to fly into town, kill you, and make it back for dinner across the country the next day. All the while the actual killer is hiding out in public, living and working in the same town in which the murder took place.
@helen pearson@twitter it also helps if one of those people has a secret family in that other state
lol this is so morbid.
But yeah, I'm definitely more concerned with a friend deleting all the files off of my computer and clearing my internet history. No one needs to be eulogizing about my prolific fanfic career.
Yes, this is relevant to my interests. Although I'm still vacillating between just having the appropriate photos on hand or actually gathering them in a centralized location like a folder "just in case."
Ugh, this worries me a LOT. There are so many things in my personal history that never need to see the light of day. I'm in law school at the moment and the most depressing aspect of a lot of the crim cases I come across is noting what details/evidence end up before the court. These women end up characterized in a few throw-away sentences which often focus on what were previously probably very private aspects of their life. It's just another layer of violation I guess.
It makes me feel truly ill to think about people dissecting my life and making judgments about me/diminishing any horror I experienced before death because of the way I chose to conduct myself in my sex/social life.
But yeah, if they wanted to choose to focus on my achievements rather than the sensational aspects that would be great too.
I have given this far too much thought, but ended up at a more depressing point than the author!
@Stardust Petunia As a virgin/nun for a very long time, I thought about, more often than normal, that if I DID get raped or anything, I was going to be so fuckin' golden in a trial. Tt really made be feel better that, even though I was not getting laid, in this hypothetical case, it would be totes worth it. Like, try and dig some dirt on me. Try and cast me as a slut I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRYYYYYYY.
I literally thought I was the ONLY that thought about this stuff. I gave my best friend my password to my facebook account so she can clear up my posts, pictures, post a missing status update for me. I read the FBI Missing Person's Website and have baseball bats in all the rooms of my house. Don't I sound like a blast to hang out with?
Just a shout-out for the Five Wishes document. It allows you to specify what kind of treatment you wish to receive, should (G-d forbid) you wind up incapacitated. It's super specific – do you want music played in your room, specific grooming performed, etc. I got a free copy in college (ages and ages ago) as part of a seminar, and it looks like this website charges, but I'd say it's worth it. According to their website, Five Wishes is a legal doc in 42 states (and has some power in all 50).
http://www.agingwithdignity.org/five-wishes.php
A friend of mine witnessed the fatal stabbing of her friend at NYC bar. It was turned into an episode of Law & Order, which was pretty traumatizing for everyone who knew her. It's a good show, but the fact that the episodes are based on real events leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
On a different but related note: you know how they identify unrecognizable bodies by their dental records? Well, that's not very helpful if there's no head. I've got a weirdly-shaped collarbone that has never been x-rayed, so I made everyone in my family and every significant other feel my collarbone so they can identify me if my decapitated skeleton is found. They look at me like I'm crazy, but if it happens they'll be glad I told them.
I keep my diaries (dreams, etc.) as files on my computer. All I'm gonna say is it's a damn good thing I'll be dead whenever someone exhumes them.